In the inevitable aftermath of Thousand Oaks, gun control activists are going to try and step up their game. Especially after a whole lot of their candidates went down in flames during the midterm elections.

For the next few weeks, expect activists to engage in any display they can to try and toy with people’s emotions and to manipulate them into supporting wrong-headed regulations on guns. It’s their only play, but they have been doing it pretty well over the last year or so.

And it’s already started.

Residents of grieving Thousand Oaks, Calif., joined New Yorkers on Sunday to recreate the aftermath of last week’s mass shooting by laying motionless in Times Square in a “die-in” to protest gun violence.

“This is what people in Parkland had to walk through. This is what people in Thousand Oaks had to walk through,” a Gays Against Guns organizer chanted as 50 demonstrators lay supine under a rainbow flag on Broadway near W. 43rd St.

Another 50 protesters gathered around the stretched-out participants, chanting “thoughts and prayers are not enough, gun control now.”

The references were to last Wednesday’s massacre at Borderline Bar & Grill in California, where a dozen people were shot dead by a deranged gunman, and the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Fla. that left 17 students and staff members dead. Gays Against Guns gathers every time there’s a mass shooting with ten or more casualties.

“It keeps ramping up,” said Jay W. Walker, 51, an organizer for the gun control group. “It’s a constant thing. “We’re at a point where out of the 312 days of the year, we’re now at 304 mass shootings.”

Except, we’re not at any 304 mass shootings. At least, not as the public thinks of such things. After all, gang violence and what happened in Thousand Oaks aren’t related in any meaningful way besides the weapon that was used. That would be like trying to link truck attacks with motor vehicle accidents to advance legislation.

To be sure, these people have a right to protest. I don’t take any issue with that. I might think their protest is dumb, but I’m pretty sure I’m not their target anyway.

Then again, I should point out that the people of New York City are typically already on their side, so this is “preaching to the choir.”

But I’d also point out to these people that while a firearm was used for evil in Thousand Oaks, it’s used far, far more often to defend human life. Try 2.5 million more times every year.

When gun control activists start making their demands, they need to tell us how they’ll only disarm the bad people and not any of the 2.5 million people that survive each year because of a firearm. That’s what I want to see.

Of course, I won’t hold my breath. After all, I love my kids and want to see them grow up.

Still, I think it’s for the best that all of us on the gun rights side of the aisle dig in and get ready for more of this stuff. I suspect we’re going to be seeing this a great deal over the next few weeks, if not months.